Heathrow boss 'slept during emergency calls' as fire led to airport closure

Heathrow’s boss has admitted sleeping through numerous calls during a substation fire that forced the closure of the airport and is expected to cost it tens of millions of pounds.

Chief executive Thomas Woldbye said that it was “frustrating” that he had missed he calls with a report into the incident clarifying that he had been asleep with his phone on silent as the overnight decision to close the airport was taken. More than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted by the incident. No flights operated at the west London airport until about 6pm on March 21 because of the blaze which started late the previous night.

On being asleep, Mr Woldbye said: He said: “That is one learning and that will not happen again. I would have liked to see my personal role play out differently.

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“That said, we need to have procedures in place that ensures that this company can take the right decisions at the right time by the right people, no matter what the situation is.”

He added: “An organisation like ours has to be able to manage, whether the captain’s on the bridge or not.” He said the financial impact of the temporary closure caused by a power outage was expected be in the “low tens of millions”.

The group is now waiting for a report from energy watchdog Ofgem to finalise its findings into the incident to see if it can claim compensation from National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET).

A review of the incident led by Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly revealed that Mr Woldbye missed “several” phone calls and emergency notifications on the night of the fire with his phone on silent.

In an interview with the BBC, he denied misjudging what it meant to be the head of one of the world ’s busiest airports.

Ofgem has launched an official enforcement investigation into NGET after a report found the fire that caused the shutdown of Heathrow was due to a preventable technical fault.

The report by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said an “elevated moisture reading” had been found in oil samples at the North Hyde substation in west London in July 2018, but that action was not taken to replace electrical insulators known as bushings.

The comments came as the airport revealed half-year profits fell by more than a third despite seeing passenger numbers soar to a record high. The group posted a 37.2% drop in pre-tax profits to £203 million for the six months to June 30 as its costs surged, partly driven by a higher wage bill after last autumn’s budget measures.